


Soaked

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2017 [6]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Coda, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-16 21:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11261322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: A brief look into Maehara’s head during chapter 23.





	Soaked

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally read three volumes of this manga in under four hours and I already feel compelled to write.

It’s not Kaho’s sudden interest in Seo that hurts.  
  
It’s not her putting the blame on him for being in Class E that hurts either.  
  
It’s not her sudden, intense rejection of him, where moments before she’d hung on his every word; it’s not Seo’s mockery, or the kick he firmly plants into Maehara’s chest; it’s not landing in a puddle and feeling his hands scrape against the pavement; and it’s not Seo and his friends, quite literally, kicking him while he’s down.  
  
It’s the Principal that does it.  
  
Maehara hears him yell for them to stop, and the boys actually do _stop_. He hears their panic, hears their apprehension because of all people, it had to be Principal Asano that caught them beating someone up. And the man walks right up to him, kneels down, offers him a handkerchief to dry himself off. Maehara tentatively reaches his hand out to accept, stunned. For once- for _once_ \- someone in the administration, apart from Koro Sensei, is stepping in to help a member of Class E?  
  
“I’m glad I was able to stop this before things got out of hand…”  
  
Maehara’s about to take the handkerchief.  
  
“…Otherwise, I would have had to expel _you._ ”  
  
The act of kindness has turned so quickly into an act of complete and utter _assholery_ that Maehara’s brain is having trouble comprehending it.  
  
_Me? You would have expelled **me?**_  
  
For one delirious second, Maehara’s brain spins pointlessly, trying to figure out what he had done during the confrontation to warrant a potential expulsion: Did he swing as he fell? Had it _looked_ like he’d been fighting back against the boys, giving the impression that it was a two-sided brawl and not a one-sided beating?  
  
No, no he hadn’t.  
  
And then Maehara remembers that it doesn’t need to be: From the lowest-ranking Class D student all the way up to Principal Asano, Class E is the whipping-boy of the school. If something goes wrong and one of them is in the vicinity, they are presumed guilty. He may as well have swung back at them, for all the difference it would have made, because Asano would have made the same call- or worse.  
  
Maehara’s face goes red with humiliation.  
  
This is the part that hurts.  
  
This is the part that stings harder than anything else.  
  
Because at the end of the day, there will always being status-obsessed girls like Kaho, willing to drop a boy without notice because she’s suddenly found someone better. And there will always be boys like Seo and his friends, who are willing to beat up someone else because they belong to the wrong class.  
  
But teachers, Principals especially- they’re supposed to be _better_. And now Principal Asano has just given Kaho, and Seo and his boys, a blank slate, veritable _permission_ to do as they please because whatever trouble _they_ start will inevitably be blamed on the Class E kid that they choose to start it with.  
  
Class E is at the very bottom, with the dirt and the worms.  
  
Even the Principal has deemed it so.  
  
Kaho and Seo seem to forget everything that’s just happened; that, or they’re playing along with Asano’s version of events. They blame him for the fight, and Kaho has the nerve to tell Maehara to stay away from her- like she wasn’t just hanging on his arm all of five minutes ago!  
  
They leave, and Maehara doesn’t bother picking himself up. It won’t hurt anything to indulge in a little self-pity and sit on the cold, wet ground a little while longer. After all, it certainly can’t get any worse.  
  
“Maehara! Are you alright?!”  
  
Alright, so it _can_ get worse.  
  
Of course other members of Class E were nearby. Of course they saw everything. The only way humiliation can get worse is if your friends and other people you respect are around to witness it.  
  
Maehara accepts the towel, accepts their assurances (“What a bitch!”) and analyses (“She felt guilty at first, tried to excuse her behavior, but then she went straight into attack mode!”), and tries to brush it off by assuring them that it’s just as easy for him to fall out of love as it is to fall in it. But still, the sting of Asano’s threat, the reminder that even he considers Class E to be at the bottom of the barrel that is his school, remains.  
  
“Is everyone like that?” Maehara asks. “Would I do the same thing to someone I thought was weaker- less than- me?”  
  
Everyone gets very quiet at that.  
  
And then Koro Sensei appears, with his head inflated to insane proportions, babbling about a lesson in revenge. “Good assassins can eliminate a target without being seen, or leaving evidence!”  
  
Maehara forces a laugh. “What are you up to, Koro Sensei?”  
  
“A little Class E justice- humiliation for humiliation!” Koro Sensei trills. “Okay, you got me- it’s revenge! We’ll teach them a lesson they’ll _never_ forget!”  
  
Maehara is both terrified and thrilled- a typical reaction to Koro Sensei’s unorthodox teaching methods- but supposes that it wouldn’t hurt to give Kaho and Seo a taste of their own medicine.  
  
Still, when all is said and done, it won’t fix the bigger problem.  
  
Maehara’s not certain that anything will.  
  
-End


End file.
